When the Game Was Ours

From the moment these two players took the court on opposing sides, they engaged in a fierce physical and psychological battle. Their uncommonly competitive relationship came to symbolize the most compelling rivalry in the NBA. These were the basketball epics of the 1980s - Celtics vs Lakers, East vs West, physical vs finesse, Old School vs Showtime, even white vs black. Each pushed the other to greatness - together Bird and Johnson collected eight NBA Championships and six MVP awards.

Seven Seconds or Less: My Season on the Bench with the Runnin' and Gunnin' Phoenix Suns

Sports Illustrated's chief NBA writer, Jack McCallum, only planned to spend the preseason with the Phoenix Suns as an "assistant coach" - and then write a story about his experiences. Instead, he stayed on with the Suns throughout their exciting and controversial 2005-2006 season. Gaining access to everything from locker-room chats with superstar point guard Steve Nash, to coaches' meetings with maverick coach Mike D'Antoni, McCallum learned what makes this wildly popular, innovative, and international assemblage of talented players and brilliant coaches tick.

Return of the King: LeBron James, the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Greatest Comeback in NBA History

The inside story of LeBron James' return and ultimate triumph in Cleveland. What really happened when LeBron James stunned the NBA by leaving a potential dynasty in Miami to come home to play with the Cleveland Cavaliers? How did the Cavs use secret meetings to put together the deal to add star Kevin Love? Who really made the controversial decision to fire coach David Blatt when the team was in first place? Where did the greatest comeback in NBA history truly begin - and end?

Boys Among Men: How the Prep-to-Pro Generation Redefined the NBA and Sparked a Basketball Revolution

When Kevin Garnett shocked the world by announcing that he would not be attending college - as young basketball prodigies were expected to do - but instead would enter the 1995 NBA draft directly from high school, he blazed a trail for a generation of teenage basketball players to head straight for the pros. That trend would continue until the NBA instituted an age limit in 2005, requiring all players to attend college or another developmental program for at least one year.

Michael Jordan: The Life

When most people think of Michael Jordan, they think of the beautiful shots, his body totally in sync with the ball, hitting nothing but net. He is responsible for incredible moments so ingrained in basketball history that they have their own names: The Shrug, The Shot, The Flu Game. But for all his greatness, there's also a dark side to Jordan: A ruthless competitor, a gambler. There's never been a biography that balanced these personas-until now.

Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s

Best-selling sportswriter Jeff Pearlman draws from almost 300 interviews to take the first full measure of the Lakers’ epic Showtime era. A dazzling account of one of America’s greatest sports sagas, Showtime is packed with indelible characters, vicious rivalries, and jaw-dropping, behind-the-scenes stories of the players’ decadent Hollywood lifestyles. From the Showtime era’s remarkable rise to its tragic end - marked by Magic Johnson’s 1991 announcement that he had contracted HIV - Showtime is a gripping narrative of sports, celebrity, and 1980s-style excess.

Showboat: The Life of Kobe Bryant

Seventeen-time all-star; scorer of 81 points in a game; MVP; and a shooting guard second only to Jordan in league history: Kobe Bryant is one of basketball's absolute greatest players, a fascinating and complicated character who knew when he was a mere boy that he would be better than Jordan on the court. The debate about whether he achieved that is a furious one - but Kobe has surpassed Jordan on the all-time scoring list and has only one less championship than Jordan (five to Jordan's six).

Got to Give the People What They Want: True Stories and Flagrant Opinions from Center Court

Jalen Rose has never been quiet. Not as a kid growing up in Detroit in the '70s and '80s. Not as the brash, trash-talking leader of the legendary "Fab Five" at the University of Michigan. Not as the player under the stewardship of Hall of Famers Larry Bird, Isiah Thomas, and others throughout his 13-year NBA career. And certainly not as a commentator and analyst on ABC/ESPN and Grantland.

The Breaks of the Game

The tactile authenticity of Halberstam's knowledge of the basketball world is unrivaled. Yet he is writing here about far more than just basketball. This is a story about a place in our society where power, money, and talent collide and sometimes corrupt, a place where both national obsessions and naked greed are exposed.

A man of deep passion and intensity, George Karl earned his bad boy reputation while playing at the University of North Carolina, a rap that continued through the five years he spent with the San Antonio Spurs - and long after he stopped playing. Karl's beery nights, fistfights, and barking followed him into a 35-year coaching career. In a game defined by big stakes and bigger egos, rabid fans and an unforgiving media, Karl was hired and fired a dozen times.

Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN

ESPN began as an outrageous gamble with a lineup that included Australian Rules Football, rodeo, and a rinky-dinky clip show called Sports Center. Today the empire stretches far beyond television into radio, magazines, mobile phones, restaurants, video games and more, while ESPN's personalities have become global superstars to rival the sports icons they cover.

The riveting inside story of college basketball's fiercest rivalry among three coaching legends - University of North Carolina's Dean Smith, Duke's Mike Krzyzewski, and North Carolina State's Jim Valvano - by the king of college basketball writers, number-one New York Times best seller John Feinstein.

Golden: The Miraculous Rise of Steph Curry

When it comes to Stephen Curry - point guard for the Golden State Warriors and reigning MVP of the NBA - journalists, fans, and sports analysts are running out of ways to say "wow". Deemed too small and too short at 6'3" and 180 pounds by NBA coaches around the league, Curry has taken the game back from the bigger men who usually dominate the court.

Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success

During his storied career as head coach of the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers, Phil Jackson won more championships than any coach in the history of professional sports. This is the story of a preacher's kid from North Dakota who grew up to be one of the most innovative leaders of our time. Eleven times, Jackson led his teams to the ultimate goal: the NBA championship - six times with the Chicago Bulls and five times with the Los Angeles Lakers. This book is full of revelations.

When the Braves Ruled the Diamond: Fourteen Flags over Atlanta

From 1991 through 2005, the Atlanta Braves did something no pro sports team can match, finishing in first place for 14 consecutive seasons. During that stretch, the Braves parlayed powerful pitching with potent hitting that produced under pressure. Hall of Fame manager Bobby Cox won with veteran teams, young teams, slugging teams, and several times with teams that emphasized speed and defense. His teams captured 100 wins in six different seasons.

Loose Balls

Loose Balls is, after all these years, the definitive and most widely respected history of the ABA. It's a wild ride through some of the wackiest, funniest, strangest times ever to hit pro sports -- told entirely through the (often incredible) words of those who played, wrote and connived their way through the league's nine seasons.

Shaq Uncut: My Story

Superman. Diesel. The Big Aristotle. Shaq Fu. The Big Daddy. The Big Shaqtus. Wilt Chamberneezy. The Real Deal. The Big Shamrock. Shaq.... From growing up in difficult circumstances and getting cut from his high-school basketball team to his larger-than-life basketball career, Shaquille O'Neal lays it all out in Shaq Uncut: My Story.

Belichick and Brady: Two Men, the Patriots, and How They Revolutionized Football

Featuring interviews from Patriots players and coaches, Holley presents a fascinating portrait of the partnership between Tom Brady, the Patriots' star quarterback, and Bill Belichick, the team's prolific coach. Chock-full of behind-the-scenes anecdotes and information exploring how they have strategized and weathered controversies, all culminating in four Super Bowl rings, this is required listening for any Patriots fan and students of the game of football.

Gunslinger: The Remarkable, Improbable, Iconic Life of Brett Favre

Gunslinger tells Brett Favre's full, definitive story for the first time, drawing on more than 500 interviews, including many from the people closest to Favre. Jeff Pearlman charts Favre's journey, from his rough rural childhood and lackluster high school football career to landing the last roster spot at Southern Mississippi to a late-night car accident that nearly took his life. Favre clawed back, getting drafted into the NFL, first to Atlanta, then to Green Bay, where he restored the Packers to greatness and inspired a fan base as passionate as any in the game.

But Seriously

He is one of the most controversial and beloved athletes in history, a tennis legend and a volcanic, mesmerizing presence. But after reaching the top of his game - what came next? Fifteen years after his international number-one best seller You Cannot Be Serious, John McEnroe is back and ready to talk. Now the undisputed elder statesman of tennis, McEnroe has won over his critics as a brilliant commentator at the US Open, Wimbledon, and other Grand Slam tournaments.

Stephen J Lee says:"uninteresting stories about famous people he knows"

Wooden: A Coach's Life

No college basketball coach has ever dominated the sport like John Wooden. His UCLA teams reached unprecedented heights in the 1960s and '70s, capped by a run of ten NCAA championships in twelve seasons and an eighty-eight-game winning streak, records that stand to this day. Wooden also became a renowned motivational speaker and writer, revered for his "Pyramid of Success." The portrait that emerges from Davis's remarkable biography is of a man in full, whose life story still resonates today.

The Phenomenon: Pressure, the Yips, and the Pitch That Changed My Life

The Phenomenon is the story of how St. Louis Cardinals prodigy Rick Ankiel lost his once-in-a-generation ability to pitch - due not to an injury or a bolt of lightning but to a mysterious anxiety condition widely known as "the Yips". It came without warning in the middle of a playoff game, with millions of people watching. And it has never gone away.

A Season on the Brink

A Season on the Brink chronicles the basketball season that John Feinstein spent following the Indiana Hoosiers and their fiery coach, Bob Knight. Knight granted Feinstein an unprecedented inside look at college basketball - with complete access to every moment of the season. Feinstein saw and heard it all - practices, team meetings, strategy sessions, and mid-game huddles - during Knight's struggle to avoid a losing season.

Pistol: The Life of Pete Maravich

Pistol is more than the biography of a ballplayer. It's the stuff of classic novels: the story of a boy transformed by his father's dream and the cost of that dream. Even as Pete Maravich became Pistol Pete, a basketball icon for baby boomers, all the Maraviches paid a price. Now acclaimed author Mark Kriegel has brilliantly captured the saga of an American family: its rise, its apparent ruin, and, finally, its redemption.

Publisher's Summary

How Michael, Magic, Larry, Charles, and the greatest team of all time conquered the world and changed the game of basketball forever.

They were the Beatles of basketball, the Mercury Seven in sneakers....

In Dream Team, acclaimed sports journalist Jack McCallum delivers the untold story of the greatest team ever assembled: the 1992 U.S. Olympic men's basketball team that captivated the world, kindled the hoop dreams of countless children around the planet, and remade the NBA into a global sensation.

As a senior staff writer for Sports Illustrated, McCallum enjoyed a courtside seat for the most exciting basketball spectacle on earth, covering the Dream Team from its inception to the gold medal ceremony in Barcelona. For the duration of the Olympics, he lived with, golfed with, and - most importantly - drank with some of the greatest players of the NBA's Golden Age: Magic Johnson, the ebullient showman who shrugged off his recent diagnosis of HIV to become the team's unquestioned captain and leader; Michael Jordan, the transcendent talent at the height of his powers as a player - and a marketing juggernaut; and Charles Barkley, the outspoken iconoclast whose utterances on and off the court threatened to ignite an international incident.

Presiding over the entire traveling circus was the Dream Team's beloved coach, Chuck Daly, whose laissez-faire approach proved instrumental in getting the most out of such disparate personalities and superstars as Larry Bird, Patrick Ewing, and Scottie Pippen.

Drawing on fresh interviews with the players, McCallum provides the definitive account of the Dream Team phenomenon. He offers a behind-the-scenes look at the controversial selection process. He takes us inside the team's Olympic suites for late-night card games and bull sessions where the players debate both the finer points of basketball and their respective places in the NBA pantheon. And he narrates a riveting possession-by-possession account of the legendary July 1992 intrasquad scrimmage that pitted the Dream Teamers against one another in what may have been the greatest pickup game - and the greatest exhibition of trash talk - in history.

In the 20 years since the Dream Team first captivated the world's attention, its mystique has only grown - and so has its influence. The NBA is now flush with international stars, many of them inspired by the exuberant spirit of '92. Dream Team vividly recreates the moment when a once-in-a-millennium group of athletes came together, outperformed the hype, and changed the future of sports - one perfectly executed fast break at a time.

My favorite character is Michael Jordan. I've been a fan for years. Dream Team gives a great insight into Jordan's dynamics with the other team members. I loved the rivalry between Jordan and Drexler.

What does Dick Hill bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Dick Hill does a great job of sharing his enthusiasm for the team and the story. His emotion makes you feel like you were an invited attendee to the "secret scrimmage".

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

The Dream Team created a great sense of nostalgia for me. Having grown up loving and playing basketball during the golden age of the NBA, I felt a connection to the players immediately. I often found myself saying out loud, "I remember that!", or "Oh, I totally forgot about that". The story itself kept me captivated. Because the narrator easily conveys his enthusiasm for the team, I made an instant connection with him as well. A favorite moment in the story is when Scottie Pippen and Michael Jordan set out to humiliate Toni Kukoc, a member of the Croatian team and newly signed and highly paid Bull. Their stifling defense shuts down the Croatian star and is a clinic on great defensive play. It also illustrates a great life lesson, don't steal money from a man's pocket, even if it is only potential money.

Any additional comments?

The Dream Team does a superb job of setting the goal to help the reader/listener identify with each player. Even the often less interesting David Robinson has a great section of the story that left me routing for him both on the court and in life. I finished the book feeling like I had a better understanding of each players motivations and a renewed appreciation for Chuck Daly's leadership. This begs the point that the Dream Team transcends being just an entertaining history of the best team ever assembled by being a great book on leading a group of superstars and high achievers in any field.

As a basketball fan, a David Robinson super fan and a teen of the 90's this book was right up my alley. It was great hearing all the great stories about the players who molded the NBA through the 80's & 90's. Great insight all how all those players talk and think about each other, these same players who would battle while on the team and for another 5-10 years after. This is a must listen for all basketball lovers.

If you are a basketball fan, this is the book for you. Maybe for many the Golden Age of basketball was the UCLA and Celtics teams of the 60's, but for most of us it was the Magic, Byrd and Michael era. This goes into so much more than just the dream team, and is well presented and read.

This is not a novel that will captivate you and have you on the edge, but a series of interviews and revelations that really show how the Dream Team came I to existence and what made them so special.

The practice game between Michael Jordan's team and Magic Johnson's. It is a game of who's the best. While the sports fan will argue what is the greatest basketball game all time, the greatest I believe is probably the one that was watched by very few.

What did you like best about this story?

The story of the game and mini bio's of all the Dream Team players.

What does Dick Hill bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Dick Hill has to be one of the greatest narrator's I have ever listen to. Every book I have listened to by Dick Hill has brought a overpowering impression of intensity and wonderful play by play of the "Greatest Game". The whole time I am thinking, Jack McCallum is the luckiest man alive!!!!